I know why the US was targeted (because they delivered arms to Israel which helped them win the Yom Kippur war) but why was the Netherlands targeted?

After Emperor Constantine moved the Roman capital to Constantinople from Rome because of the amount of pagan symbolism on Rome, you would think that the Papal State would have taken residency in Constantinople instead. So why was Vatican City in Rome and not in Constantinople? Was there ever a time where they were planning on putting it there? What was the deciding factor, if any, that made the Vatican in Rome?

Inther media, American (and often British) soldiers watching movies while deployed in Europe during World War II is a common scene. On the Eastern front, what was the film situation for Soviet troops? Did they have access to entertainment via motion pictures to the same extent that their Western counterparts did? What kinds of movies did they have, if any?

I personally think the belief of a God being much greater than previously deified emperors likely changed the perspective and mentality of the empire and subsequently led to its eventual collapse. I'm not well versed on the fall of the empire and have yet to read Gibbon, but I know many of you are and have. What are your opinions/claims?

My friend and I are in a debate right now as to whether or not the people of a country felt a sense of nationalism in one's country before the treaty of Westphalia. One of us argued that as far back as the Roman Republic, a state existed that felt a sense of nationalism/ patriotism. Where as the other person argued the idea of a nation state wasn't conceived until relatively recently in history, and that since other cultures during the era of the Romans identified more with the people that surrounded them, rather than as a culture, that there is no way that Romans could have been nationalistic, and thus an Anti-Example. So was the roman republic a nation state of people, that felt a sense of nationalism in Rome, or not?

For most of recorded history, nights were long and dark. Even among the very wealthy, candles were an extravagance that were only burned in large numbers with company (one visitor to an 18th century Virginia aristocrat's home noted with awe that when the worthy gentleman had guests over, he had six candles burning in a single room).

But in the early 20th century, we saw the rapid expansion of electronic lighting in the form of incandescent light bulbs. I'm not sure how long it took for them to become affordable to most people, but surely even in the 1910s more and more people were experiencing nights illuminated by electronic light.

This seems like a profound change in the way we experienced the cycle of day and night, one that perhaps had dramatic implications for the way we understood time and what kind of activities could take place after the setting of the sun.

How did people feel about this? Unalloyed joy at "progress?" Anxiety about this change in how we view and interact with the night?

Easter Island seems like an important Pacific island outpost, given its relative isolation. Why didn't one of the colonial powers take control of it?

Near the rise of the Nazi party, Stalin recognized the threat that Germany posed to Russia, and didn’t want a repeat of Germany invading Russia as they did in WWI. So when Stalin reached out to Britain and to France to say “let’s isolate Hitler” they turned him down because the only thing that the West feared more than Hitler was Stalin.
So then Stalin’s only option was to make a nonaggression pact I’m 1939 with Germany knowing that it was only a matter of time before Hitler turned his back on him in 1941 with the Barbarossa Operations.

Edit: 1941 from originally posted 1949

I was wondering about this recently. When talking about the fascism of 20s and 30s Europe, Germany is always the big bad guy, while Italy is left in the shadows? Is there a particular reason for this ? Was Italy a more benign fascist state? Was it less racist?

What were the differences between the two states, politically, socially, economically, etc. ?

Were there any famous bands that traveled the country/world for money like the Ancient Greek version of The Beatles as an analogy.

In American Caesar William Manchester quites Douglas MacArthur as saying after the Battle of Okinawa: "The Central Pacific command just sacrificed thousands of American soldiers because they insisted on driving the Japanese off the island. In three or four days after the landing the American forces had all the area they needed, which was the area they needed for airplane bases. They should have had the troops go into a defensive position and just let the Japs come to them and kill them from a defensive position, which would have been much easier to do and would have cost less men."

MacArthur was a brilliant general, but his vanity and jealousy of other military commanders were also legendary. Does MacArthur's criticism of the strategy of driving the Japanese off Okinawa make sense? Or were there reasons why MacArthur's approach wouldn't have worked?

The text in question: "Unlike the mountain chains guarding the necks of the Iberian and Italian Peninsulas, the Balkan ranges offer no barrier against invasion, leaving the region open to easy access and attack from the north and east. On the other hand, their irregular formation hinders movement between one valley and the next." (Page 3, The Balkans: A Short History, 2002)

How were actual invasions of Balkan territory affected by mountains? Moreover (if you'll indulge me), how have Balkan peoples thought of the relationship between themselves and the mountains around them? I recognize that that question is immensely broad.

They're like right next to each other, and yet they may as well have been neutral to each other. I've heard that maybe the Russians finishing their fight with Germany and possibly hoping to invade Japan (to get a communist North Japan maybe) was as much if not more of a motivator for the Japanese to surrender; but why weren't they shooting each other around 1943-44?

If you were a ruler during the Middle Ages, where would you look to find a torturer? Among your own guards? The executioner?

I realize that there was probably a lot of variation, given that "Middle Ages" covers a LOT of years. I'm just trying to get a sense of what kind of background a torturer might have.

[deleted]